Coast To Coast
by twinkinu
Summary: [4/19 completed.] They started in Oregon, wanderlust nestled comfortably in their thoughts, calling them to their old home in New Jersey. But the twins had no intention of coming home before fulfilling their lifelong ambitions, so they took the long way around. (A series of short vignettes following the Pines twins on their circumnavigational adventures. Rated T for language)
1. Gravity Falls, Oregon, USA

_i._ Gravity Falls, Oregon, USA.

 _You were a shameless child, bandied by stiff cross currents. Anything but mild, yes and no just simply weren't invented yet._

꙳

Stan closed his final bag, the soft ring of the zipper echoing between his ears in the near-silent house. He sat back and flipped through his mental checklist, ensuring he hadn't forgotten a single supply. Although, in all honesty, Ford was sure to pack more than was necessary, fully anticipating his brother to come up empty on some vital supply.

After all, Stanley hadn't seen his twin all day, and already it was nearly two in the morning.

Ford was stowed away in his lab, arranging his luggage and tinkering with his new inventions that, with any luck, would help them along their voyage. A portable water purifier that could make sea water drinkable, a compass that functioned properly on all sides of the earth, coats made from multidimensional fabrics that assist one's body in maintaining homeostasis in every possible weather condition.

He'd spent the past several weeks studying languages and wind patterns, identifying at which seasons they would be traversing which waters and which countries and places Stan probably shouldn't be allowed to enter. He'd packed all three of his journals as well as a couple of empty ones, thick auburn leather encasing warm tea-colored pages, an aureate six-fingered hand adorning the cover of each book.

An entire duffel bag was chosen to exclusively harbor Ford's weapons. A long-range tazer, a positronic needler, a crossbow, his quantum destabilizer, a number of grenades, explosives, some daggers. The only weapons he planned to take that weren't stored in the bags were the three that he carried at all times, never daring to remove: hidden between his foot and the wall of his left boot, his multitool; slid into an ages-old neoprene calf holster, his drop-point serrated hunting knife; concealed within a sash-style holster draped across his chest, his raygun.

Ford was prepared.

It took quite a bit of analytics, problem solving, and trial-and-error for the doctor to determine how to carry all of his luggage from the basement up to the front door in a single trip, but he eventually managed. A smile etched its way onto his face, cheeks warming at the sight of Stan crouched beside his few messy bags and cases, rifling through his old, ratty dufflebag and pulling a few things out.

"I would suggest that you refrain from unpacking until we're already _on_ the boat, Lee."

Stan sat up straight, a grin spreading across his face as his brother's smooth, friendly voice broke the silence in the air. "Well, I remembered you mentionin' that you wanted all the weapons in the same bag. I still think that's a dumb idea, if I ever heard one, but hey. You're the genius." He turned around and gestured to the pile beside him, which contained his brass knuckles, two semi-automatic pistols, a switchblade, and a grocery bag full of smoke bombs. "Go ahead, pack 'em up. I got an AR in here too, but I can't find it just yet."

Ford pinched the bridge of his nose as chuckles bubbled out from his throat, soft and genuine. They tinted the air a purple-pink. "How do you lose an assault rifle, Stanley?"

"How d'you lose an assault rifle, Stanley," Stan mimicked, voice twisted in a mocking nature, his right hand flapping in the air to imitate Ford's mouth opening and closing. "Shut your yap, Brainiac. I got it around here somewhere."

Ford rolled his eyes, leftover laughs still shaking his shoulders. He unloaded all of his bags onto the floor, then leaned into the weapons duffel and zipped it open, loading his brother's things into it. "It's best for us to keep all of our weapons in one place. This way, we can avoid losing track of any of them and risking that they fall into the wrong hands."

"God forbid the 'wrong hands' manage to get ahold of the whole damned bag, leaving us defenseless," Stan muttered, shoving all his clothes haphazardly back into the bag he had opened, zipping it up after successfully confirming that it did not hold his M16.

"Hey," said Ford, nudging his twin on the shoulder so he would look up at him. "We have each other's backs, remember? We're never defenseless." He offered a reassuring smile, which Stan returned, and reached back into the duffel to retrieve something. "Keep these on you. If it'll make you feel better." He handed his brother the brass knuckles.

"Hey, what did I say about you gettin' all sappy on me?" Stan scolded, snatching the dusters from Ford's hands. But there was a ghost of a smile dancing on the edges of his lips the way that warm rosy-pink dances on the tip of a young boy's nose after spending long, chilly evenings working toward a distant dream, the way that comfortable nostalgia dances in the back of an old man's mind after being reunited with a lost friend. The quiet almost-smile indicated nothing but fondness, and when Ford saw it his expression took on a wistful dance of its own.

Not long after that, they started packing up the car, eager to get on the road. It was a little less than four hours to drive to Newport, where their monohull was waiting, and they wanted to set sail by dawn so that they could get a good start before the late summer heat kicked in.

The road stretched on ahead of them, Stan drumming his fingers on the steering wheel as he listened to his brother speak excitedly about plans and ideas that he had, places he wanted to visit and what adventures he thought might lie in wait for them there.

Stan smiled listening to his brother talk, his gentle orchid-purple voice painting animated illustrations of the land, the sea, and their millions of undiscovered secrets and hidden inhabitants. Excitement swirled deep in Stan's core as they conversed throughout the ride.

Loading their bags and settling into the Stan O' War II once they arrived at Newport was almost effortless; the twins had been preparing for this day for so long that neither of them had any focus other than completing everything necessary in order to set sail.

And when their boat set out, cruising westward across the Pacific Ocean, nostalgia and wanderlust gripped the hearts of both brothers, leaving them breathless as they beat on, tall orange-colored clouds and pearlescent rays of light hitting their smiling faces as the sun rose on their long-awaited adventure.

꙳

 _Here we go, mistaking clouds for mountains. Oh, here's the thing that brings the sparrows to the fountains. Oh, here's the thing that makes us run for the highlands. Autonomy._

꙳

 _Lyrics (c) Andrew Bird._

 _I do not own Gravity Falls._


	2. Kiska, Alaska, USA

_ii._ Kiska, Alaska, USA.

 _Your future's a machine with the mechanics of a dream. And it's your mind that spins the wheel and your heart that makes you feel all the guilt for all your_ _sins. Oh, and a_ _s that wheel spins, well, it plays as they believed, and for your [brother] you have grieved. Oh, the world still deceives you as it turns._

꙳

The evening sky above them to Stan looked like a nursery, a soft periwinkle ceiling sprinkled with pastel yellow stars. They had been on the ocean for about a week, and it came as a pleasant surprise when Ford told Stan that they were nearing some little islands in what seemed to be the middle of nowhere; they had originally planned not to stop until they reached Japan, but the winds carried them elsewhere and while Stan adored this time he was spending with his brother, crossing the entire Pacific without first acquiring a good pair of sea legs seemed a daunting task.

"Are ya sure there's somethin' out there?" Stan leaned forward, squinting out at the mass of fog ahead of them. The mild mid-september air tickled his nose.

"If the global positioning system that I assembled is accurate– and it _is_ –" Ford offered his commentary while Stan attempted (and failed) to navigate the misty waters, "we're coming upon the Aleutian Islands right now."

"Yeah, well, I can't see a thing." Stan looked up at the sky, which had been an eternity high just moments ago. Now, the pastel galaxy was overtaken by clouds, their thick, ominous grey expanding over the pale Alaskan sun and covering the baby blue gloaming in a low canopy. Stan experimentally reached out in front of himself, and just as he feared, he couldn't see his own hand through the fog. "Uh, Sixer?"

Ford glanced around, admittedly a bit unnerved by the encroaching darkness. He waved a hand, however, a confident smile cracking his face. "Listen, Stanley, we'll be fine. This GPS has infallible accuracy. We can manage a half hour without being able to see. I can navigate our exact location using this device–"

Ford's explanation was interrupted when the trawler hit shore and came to an abrupt stop. "As long as ya pay attention to it, ya can," Stan quipped, rubbing his face and straightening himself from having been thrown forward against the helm.

After a moment of tense quiet, a short, gutteral laugh escaped Ford's mouth as if he had tried to suppress it. From the opaque heather clouds, Stan heard his brother's voice emerge. "Hell of a first docking, huh, Lee?"

Stan looked in the direction of the voice, momentarily stunned. It took only a matter of seconds, however, for him to break down into a fit of laughter, leaning forward with his hands on his knees. This prompted his brother to join in the outburst, their mirth rising in the cloudy sky like yellow helium balloons. "Guess I'm _not_ the only one who can screw up, am I, Sixer?"

Ford reached toward his brother's voice and managed to land a playful punch to Stan's shoulder. "Hey, shut up!"

As the twins' laughing died out, Ford crouched down and felt around the floor of the boat in search of his satchel, which he had laid beneath the helm. When he found it, he dug around for a bit before pulling out a high-beam flashlight and switching it on. "There we go," he smiled, shining it up into Stan's face and revealing his visage through the fog. Stan reacted in the exact way that Ford was hoping, leaping backward away from the bright beam and rubbing his eyes.

"Holy Moses, Ford! Watch it with that thing!"

Ford chuckled, taking out a second flashlight and tossing it to his brother. "Go push us off the sand so I can drop anchor, you knucklehead."

"Aha! Once again, bro, your freaky brains pale in comparison to my punching." Stan switched his flashlight on, grabbing a large duffel bag full of supplies to bring along. He didn't bother to check what was in the bag before climbing over to the bow and hopping over the rail onto the beach. He shone the flashlight over the boat to assess the damage. Nothing too bad, and they were only a few feet onto the beach. "Ya ready?"

"Whenever you are!"

Stan pressed his palms firmly against the boat, letting out a grunt as he pushed as hard as he could, feeling the boat inch back into the water with a surprising amount of ease. Once it was successfully returned to the sea, Stan turned the beam of white light to his brother and watched him measure out a length of rope before lowering the anchor. Then, Ford hopped out of the boat and landed beside Stan. They started their trek toward the inward part of the island without delay, eager to search the wilderness that awaited them. "Kiska, Alaska, United States," the researcher read off of his GPS. "Hm... Perhaps we should leave."

"Huh? What for?"

"Well, if I remember correctly, Kiska was occupied by Japan in World War II, and now it's a National Historic Landmark on one side, and a National Wildlife Refuge on the other. Which means one big federal law that we're walking all over."

Stan pushed his brother over, rolling his eyes. "Oh, what, you're allowed to break the universe but ya can't break the law? If we're ever gonna get to Jersey, ya can't poop out on me at the first little federally protected island we come across. Now let's explore a little, alright?"

Ford laughed softly and nodded, scanning the area with his flashlight to oblige.

Then, the fog began to part. The sun hesitantly shone through. And a crater appeared before them, a small bowl of rubble and dust.

"This must be part of that historical landmark ya were talkin' about, huh?" Stan kicked the edge of the crater, sending dust flying up, coating his waders and freckling his face. The fog continued to dissipate until Stan could see on for a mile ahead of him, and his jaw dropped. "Hot Belgian waffles," he breathed. "I guess _that's_ it."

A vast expanse of a battlefield lay before him, bombshells and cannons and torpedoes. Craters littered the island like seeds within lotus pods, and burnt orange remains of machinery were strewn about everywhere. A tremendous shipwreck rested offshore, not far from where they'd anchored the Stan O' War II.

"Damn. That's gotta be the coolest fuckin' thing I've ever seen. And I once saw a dead rat floatin' in a bucket." Stan smirked, waiting for a response, but his smile faded when none came. "Poindexter? Hey, am I talkin' to myself over here?" He turned around to look at his brother, but Ford was facing the other way, standing unresponsive and dangerously still. Stan took a step forward, brow furrowed in concern. "Poindexter?" he said once more, gently worried for his brother, his voice a quiet rosy amber in the middle of a beige and russet wasteland.

Ford couldn't speak. He couldn't move. Hell, he could barely even _hear_ Stan right now. His eyes were wide, his hands shaking, his lower lip quivering. He dropped his flashlight and it rolled over the lip of the crater and down to the bottom. Ahead of him, only 250 yards away, was the side of a tall hill, a wall made from yellow grass and warm Alaskan dirt. Carved into the lee, like someone had taken a knife and scribbled madly until their work was complete, there it was: an all-seeing eye.

Ford couldn't think rationally, his thoughts plagued with constant obscenities and expressions of hatred; of anger; of fear; of regret, all of it directed at himself.

 _How could you have trusted him, you idiot? He would have done anything to get into this dimension._

 _There's no such thing as a friendly demon._

 _How stupid were you to think he hadn't put up symbols of himself all over the world? Even now, you're still shocked to know you weren't special._

 _He was right when he said you belonged with his army of freaks._

Ford's downward spiral was interrupted with the deafening roar or a gunshot when a bullet sped past him, making him jump. He launched into a brief panic, right hand instantly hovering over his raygun, but when the bullet reached its target, dead center of the triangular carving, the side of the wall crumbled down. The illustration was reduced to rubble and dust, coffee-colored gravel swirling in the air as if from a ghost's grave.

Bill Cipher's image was gone, or at least buried under four feet of dirt. Ford turned slowly to see his brother standing behind him, duffel bag wide open at his feet, its contents spilled onto the ground. On Stan's shoulders, his hands readily in position to fire, was his M16.

Stan waited for the ringing in their ears to die down, then he relaxed, pulling out the magazine and taking the assault rifle off his shoulders. "I found it," he offered, nodding to the gun that he now held at his side.

They walked in silence for a while, Stan taking in his surroundings and more or less leading the way while Ford continued to lose himself in his own thoughts.

"It was all my fault, Stan," Ford eventually confessed, a doleful utterance that split the still air like an ax digging into a tree.

Stan sighed. _Here we go._ He stopped walking and put a hand on his brother's shoulder. "I know ya think that, Ford, but-"

"I don't just _think_ that, Stanley! It's indisputable! It's a fact, an undeniable, irrefutable mark on the history of the multiverse, and it's a mark that _I_ left! I'm the sole reason that–"

"That it's over," Stan finished, squeezing his brother's shoulder.

Ford smiled sadly but shook his head. "No, _you're_ the reason it's over."

"I'm also kinda the reason it started, right?"

The inventor's voice caught in his throat. "I– It's not entirely your fault, Stanley–"

"And it's not entirely yours, either, Stanford. I don't care how many times we have this discussion. I'm not changin' my mind."

Ford took a deep breath and nodded, closing his eyes.

"Besides. He's long gone now. And he's never comin' back, alright? I might not remember everything about that day, but I do remember punchin' that obtuse freak into oblivion. And I _don't_ remember the last time I punched something and it came back." At that, Stan winked, nudging his brother playfully. "Now let's go find ya some old relics you can obsess ove. And I mean _other_ than yourself. I know you're itchin' to get your hands on some of that rusty old tech."

Ford allowed himself a hesitant laugh. "Yeah, yeah. You're right. I am."

"'Cause you're a nerd," Stan smiled, pointing a finger at his twin, a twinkle in his eyes.

Ford chuckled again, genuinely this time, and nodded. "Yes, Stanley. Because I'm a nerd." He smiled to himself, looking up as the clouds finally faded from the summer Alaskan sky, revealing a swirling infinity of lavender-grey dotted with stars.

꙳

 _But if you turn your hands to flames, the light will burn the same, whether you just pass it through, or if it's what to meant to do. And your sense of culpability is from the guides that you perceived. Their constant lies that you believed will show you grace when you turn to a ghost._

꙳

 _Lyrics (c) Noah and the Whale._

 _I do not own Gravity Falls._


	3. 桜島，　鹿児島市，　日本

_A/N: Some (romanized) Japanese conversation appears in this chapter. Approximate, non-literal translations of the dialogue are at the_ _end_ _, but knowing what they're saying shouldn't be vital to understanding what's going on._

...꙳..꙳..꙳..꙳...

 _iii._ 桜島，鹿児島市，日本。

Sakurajima, Kagoshima, Japan.

 _Crash and burn, crash and burn, crash and burn. Patience is the hallmark of the old and the infirm. Live to learn, live and learn, oh, lived and learned. Outlived fear and lust and traded want in for concern, singing, 'That's alright.' Yeah, that's alright._

꙳

It was late October when the Pines twins docked their trawler off the coast of Sakurajima, a volcano in the island of Kyūshū, and they wasted no time grabbing the necessary bags to start their journey through the deep ashen landscape of the great volcano.

They ate breakfast at a small diner, discussing legends and folklore with colorful natives, making their way through all of the tourist attractions and parks before finally managing to sneak their way into no-man's land, the uninhabited wilderness about halfway up Minami-dake, the former island's southernmost peak.

Ford was eager, babbling fervently to Stan about his research as they hiked up toward the peak. The enthusiasm was infectious, Stan was beginning to feel it swell in his chest, as well.

"Nobody knows the true nature of the nekomata, Stan! They're ancient cats that have transformed into yōkai, and _we_ get to see which of the legends are true! Shapeshifting, possession, torturing humans, cursing humans, killing and eating humans, even manipulation of the _dead_ has been reported, but _we_ will be the ones to finally record the actual characteristics of these beings!"

Stan made a face. "Manipulation of the dead? _Eating people?_ Yeesh, I always knew I was a dog person."

"Cats are fascinating, Stanley," Ford frowned. "There are records dating back to the twelfth century of cats becoming demons! Nekomata sightings and legends typically don't occur in this prefecture, but my scans have been picking up on significant amounts of weird activity here. Tourists and residents alike are beginning to mention sightings of suspicious cats around this area."

 _"All_ cats are suspicious," Stan quipped, ruffling his brother's hair.

From behind them, an angry voice penetrated the dense shrubbery, addressing the brothers. _"Oi, omae! Nan no mane da!?"_

When the Japanese man approached them, shouting in some sort of a foreign language (which admittedly was most likely Japanese, but Stan wasn't prepared to confess how long it took him to come to that conclusion), Stan was instantly ready to fight or flee, but he was in no way ready for the way that his brother took charge of the situation.

Ford turned to face the man, offering him a short, polite bow. _"Sumimasen,"_ he said softly. _"Watashi no ani to watashi wa ryōko-sha desu."_

Stan squinted at the scene as it played out before him, confused.

The young man—who honestly was not that young, but definitely younger than the Pines twins, most likely forty- or fifty-something—was not appeased in any way by Ford's politeness. _"Ittai zentai kimi wa dara nanda?"_ he asked, just as angry as before. _"Anata wa koko ni bashi ga arimasen!"_

Ford narrowed his eyes, studying the man's face with cautious suspicion at his lack of rationality. The brothers had encountered dozens of natives since they docked the Stan O' War II last night, and even the ones who seemed incredibly rude at first were quick to warm up and offer directions or advice. Hell, Ford had lived in Japan (or, something similar to it) for a good four years of his time traversing the multiverse, and the one thing he knew about the people of this culture was that they were never quick to start fights.

 _What's another human being doing this far into the wilderness of the volcano, anyway?_

 _"Watashi no ani to watashi wa ryōko-sha desu,"_ he repeated slowly, suspicion rising in his voice.

 _"Shizuka ni!"_ the man shouted, a crazed expression on his face. _"Achi ni itte, hitori ni shite kudasai! Koto o aredateru na!"_ he threatened.

 _"Watashitachi wa tada Sakurajima o tsūteiru,"_ Ford explained. His voice was growing in confidence, a displeased look on his face. A warning tone played around the edges of his register. He put his hands up in attempt to show no harm, but his eyes were fiery daggers of paranoia and mistrust.

The Japanese man was stubborn as an ox, unwilling to make peace with the travelers. _"Sono koto wa hōnen suru ga yoi,"_ he warned, taking a step forward.

 _"Watashi wa kurō o hoshikunaidesu."_ Ford stepped forward as well, hand inching closer to his raygun.

"Urusai!" The man's eyes darted dangerously to Ford's hand and his anger rose substantially. _"Boku nara mō sukoshi ki o tsukeru ga ne! Omae ryōhō-tomo o_ korusu!" He was almost screaming now, asserting _something_ with conviction, and by his tone Stan couldn't determine whether it was a warning or a threat.

It was apparently a threat, because Ford immediately reacted by pulling out his ray gun and blasting thrice in rapid succession.

"Sweet _Moses,_ Stanford!" the conman cried, jumping back. "Why the hell would you shoot–"

Stan got his answer when a deeply disturbing cackle came from the Japanese man, who appeared unharmed other than the three large holes through his abdomen. The injuries instantly started healing themselves, veins and tendons wrapping around each other to close the holes. His pupils grew until his entire eyes were a thick, inky black, and claws grew from his hands.

In a deep, layered register that enveloped the brothers like a thundering abyss, he bellowed, _"Konna koto, kimi ga shite wa ikenakatta."_ He continued to laugh, his feet losing contact with the ground as he rose into the air.

"Son of a bitch," Stan breathed. Then, he furrowed his brow, recovering his composure and brazenly telling the monster, "You have _got_ to be the ugliest thing that I have ever seen."

 _"Run,"_ Ford ordered, and the twins took off through the barren wilderness and back toward the tourist attractions on the outer edge of the former island. Ford dared a glance back at the creature, and sure enough, a muscular black feline was chasing after them.

Except for its large, 30-pound frame and its two long tails, the creature appeared nearly identical to a common house cat. But there was something incredibly wrong-looking about it, and Ford couldn't put his finger on what it was. The animal was nestled somewhere in the uncanny valley between Cat and Yōkai, and Ford was repulsed.

"So when the hell didja start speakin' Japanese, Poindexter?"

"Oh, honestly, Stanley! Don't we have more important things to be dealing with right now?"

"I just wanna know when ya started speakin' Japanese!"

"I really don't feel like that's pertinent to the situation, Stan!"

The cat suddenly appeared in front of the men, causing them to scramble to a sudden stop. It rose up on its back legs and moved toward them in an eerily humanlike fashion. _"Nihongo o hanashimasen?"_ it asked, an unnatural grin spreading across its face. It was looking directly into Stan's eyes. "How about English? _Zhōngwén? Hangug-eo? Français? Hindee? Español?"_ The register and intonation of the nekomata's voice changed with each new language that it spoke, causing its speech to seem unnaturally detached from its psychical form. Another bizarre laugh erupted from the cat's mouth, and the ground shook. "I'm only joking, Pines. I know you're an idiot. Your brother's elementary Japanese was quite impressive, but you clearly have much less in your repertoire."

"What do you want?" Stan spat.

"Well," the cat purred, one long tail extending and wrapping tightly around Stan's ankle. "I was going to let you leave, if you had heeded my advice. But since your brother insisted on being so rude-" the yōkai shot a pointed glare at Ford- "I decided to show you everything you desire to know."

Stan tried yanking his ankle free, but the cat reacted by pulling back and violently bringing Stan to the ground. Ford lunged toward his brother, and in an instant the feline was dragging him down, too, a second tail tightening around his leg.

"Your brother may have acted as polite as he could, Stanley, but the two of you can't hide your intentions from me. For some reason, I couldn't find my way into Stanford's head, but yours was an open door for me. A big, dumb, open door, full of almost as many secrets and hidden intentions as it is full of self hatred and worthlessness." It grinned mockingly. "You wanted to learn more about me, brothers? How would you like to know how it feels to be tortured by the infamous Nekomata?"

"Nah, I think I've had enough torture for one lifetime." Stan pressed the button on his switchblade, which he had wiggled out of his sleeve. The blade sprang out and cut the last several inches off the tail of the creature. The cat hissed in pain and recoiled both of its tails in reaction, letting the brothers free.

The inventor scrambled to his feet, pulling his ray gun out and shooting at the head of the feline demon, hoping to at least buy them some time. "I thought you put your switchblade with the rest of the weapons?" Ford asked his brother, shouting over the sound of the ray gun blasts.

"What, ya think I only got one switchblade?"

"How many do you have?!"

"I really don't feel like that's pertinent to the situation, Ford," Stan mocked, pocketing his blade after successfully standing and regaining his balance. "Now let's get outta here!"

Ford nodded and they took off downhill, feet struggling to keep up with the speed of their flight. It wasn't long before they heard four paws chasing behind them, closing distance quickly. "Do you think you can get away from me, Pines twins? Do you really think you can outsmart me?"

"Yep!" Ford called back without hesitation. He turned around for a split second, just quick enough to shoot at the feline's legs to slow it down, then to throw a grenade.

Ford tackled his brother behind a dense wall of bushes, rolling into a crouched hiding position with a firm arm on Stan to keep him stationary.

"Hey, Brainiac, what the hell are you doing?!" Stan hissed. "Shouldn't we, I don't know, get the hell away from the friggin' _grenade_ you just threw?!"

"It's no ordinary grenade," the older twin explained, voice hushed as he peered out from behind the thick, mossy shrubbery. "I got it in dimension 532-A when raiding an abandoned military base. It erects a strong forcefield ten meters in radius around where it lands. The field not only protects nearby civilians from the explosion, but also concentrates all of the energy inward, resulting in a much more powerful – and effective – blast to the target."

Stan nodded, trying his best to process the information. "So, will it kill the thing?"

"Hell if I know," Ford exasperated. "But if the demon _can_ regenerate after a blast like that, it will take quite a while—long enough for us to be in the middle of Hangzhou by the time it gets back on its feet."

A muffled yet still deafening roar boomed out numbly from behind them and a low thrumming rang out accompanied quiet synthetic tones as the forcefield powered down.

After the dust settled and the twins' hearing returned to normal, they stood, walking back to the explosion site, and they cautiously peered into the immense crater that now bit into the ground, at least fifty meters deep.

"So much for researching the yōkai," the scientist sighed.

Stan bent over to examine the crater, and much to his horror there were... cat bits. Everywhere.

"Yeesh," the conman grunted, expression twisting into a scowl of disgust. "I always knew I was a dog person."

With chagrin, Ford blew a long puff of air into the cool autumn dust that rose in swirls from the pit at their feet. "Yeah," he reluctantly agreed. "Me too, now."

꙳

 _So come on down; get your pestilence and vice and pass them around. We'll blow this town. Let's jump off this ship before the shit just runs aground, singing, 'That's alright.' Yeah, that's alright._

 _It's a disaster. It's an incredible mess, but it's all we've got now. Howling with laughter, panic, alarm, and distress; that's all we've got now. Yeah, it's all we've got._

꙳

 _Lyrics (c) OK Go._

 _I do not own Gravity Falls._

...꙳..꙳..꙳..꙳...

TRANSLATIONS:

(NM = nekomata; FP = Ford)

NM: _Hey, you! What do you think you're doing?_

FP: _Excuse me. My brother and I are travelers._

NM: _Who the hell do you think you are? You have no business here!_

FP: _My brother and I are travelers._

NM: _Be quiet! Go away and leave me alone! Don't ask for trouble!_

FP: _We're just passing through Sakurajima._

NM: _I suggest that you put it out of your mind._

FP: _I don't want any trouble._

NM: Shut up! _I'd be careful if I were you! I'll_ kill _you both!_

[after Ford shoots him]

NM: _You shouldn't have done that._

[later, when talking to Stan]

NM: [speaking in the respective languages] _You don't speak Japanese? How about English? Mandarin? Korean? French? Hindi? Spanish?_


	4. 青岛市，　山东省，　中国

_A/N: I went back over all previous chapters and edited them, fixing some issues and adding better description! Chapters 3 (Sakurajima) and 4 (Qingdao) have changed the most, even receiving different endings, so I would appreciate if you guys wouldn't mind rereading!_

...꙳..꙳..꙳..꙳...

 _iv._ 青岛市，山东省，中国。

Qingdao, Shandong, China.

 _While we're on the subject, could we change the subject now? I was knocking on your ear's door, but you were always out. Looking towards the future, we were begging for the past. Well, we knew we had the good things, but those never seemed to last._

 _Oh, please just last._

꙳

"I got you a cup of coffee." Ford sat on the edge of the bed, where his brother was hiding. His voice was low and hesitant, pleading for his brother to let him in.

The Stan O' War II had been docked at Qingdao, a port city off of the Yellow Sea. They had intended to dock at Hangzhou and go inland to investigate some weird activity picked up by Ford's scans, but there was an unexpected change of plans.

——

Stan had woken up in the middle of the night, red-faced and glistening in a cold sweat. Ford immediately abandoned his navigatory position at the helm of the boat when he heard the deeply disturbed scream of terror and panic emerge from the bunker where Stan should have been sleeping.

He ran to the sleeping quarters, gun drawn in preparation to battle whatever may be holding his brother hostage.

He barged in, shocked to see the quarters empty except for his brother. "Stan?! Stan, what happened?!"

Stan was pressing himself to the far corner of the room, staring at his brother with a feral, frightened look in his eye. "Where am I?" he demanded, trembling.

 _Oh, n_ _o. No, no, no._ _He was doing so well._ Ford had initially expected something like this to happen when Stan first got his memory back, his paranoia and anxiety not allowing him to believe that his brother was actually returned to him, totally intact. But as time passed with Stan's memories flawlessly unimpaired, Ford had let his guard down, at last allowing himself to believe that Stan was going to be okay. But here Stan was, trembling in fear, no idea who or where he was or what was going to happen to him.

The scientist tried his utmost to keep his voice low and calm, sturdy. His register betrayed the deep panic and dread rising inside of him. Maybe it would pass. Maybe this was temporary."We're in the East China Sea."

"So, what, ya kidnapped me and dragged me out to the middle of the goddamned ocean?!" The confused man eyed the gun in the stranger's hand and, terrified, pressed himself further into the corner; inadvertently, he kicked away his pillow and saw the handgun hidden under it. He scrambled to grab it and aimed it at his captor, tremors shooting mercilessly through his hands as he slid a finger over the trigger.

Ford flinched. "Stanley, just breathe-"

"Who's Stanley?! Did ya kill him?! Ya gonna kill me too?!"

The abductor took a slow step forward and the amnesiac tightened his grip on the gun. "Just tell me what ya wanna do with me, and no one gets hurt!"

"Stanley-" Ford's voice faltered. His throat started to close. "Stan, it's me. I'm not going to kill you. I would never hurt you." _Not again._ Stan's hands started shaking harder, hovering over the trigger. Ford took another step forward. "Just put the gun down, okay? Look- look, I'll do it, too." He slowly put his raygun on the floor, then kicked it away.

The confused man hesitated, but nodded and let the gun drop to the floor after deciding that he would never be able to safely fire with his useless trembling hands, anyway. As soon as the weapon was gone, the stranger rushed to his side. He recoiled violently, but relaxed when the hands placed on his shoulders were gentle and brought no harm. There was something about the contact that felt... like _home._

As he observed the steady hands on him, his eyebrows knit tightly together. "You have six fingers." Something tugged hard on the amnesiac's brain. Something familiar.

 _High six?_

 _High six._

Ford closed his eyes. An indescribable pain consumed him. The pain of realizing all over again that his brother didn't know who he was. The pain of being mocked for his hands by the one who used to be the only person in the whole world who didn't give a shit about how many fingers he had. "It's... a birth defect."

The amnesiac nodded and said nothing else about it, turning away. "So if you're not killin' me, why am I here? Ya gonna skin me alive and wear my face as a mask or somethin'?"

The single exasperated laugh that Ford coughed out in reaction was entirely void of humor. "What would be the point in doing that? We have the same face."

"Uh, what?"

Oh, God. _Of course he doesn't even know what he looks like_. Ford closed his eyes and tried to concentrate. Inhale, exhale. In the nose, two, three. Out the mouth, two, three. Again and again until he felt that he could speak without choking around his words.

"Your name is Stanley Pines. I'm Stanford, your brother. We're twins." He stopped to let the information sink in and only continued when he saw Stan nod. "We're on our boat, the Stan O' War II. It's named after the original Stan O' War. The one we built when we were kids... We always wanted to sail across the world back then, Lee. And now we finally are. We're traveling across the whole ocean."

 _Lee_. Something inexplicably nostalgic about that syllable rang in the lost man's chest.

"And... where are we now?"

A hopeless look crossed the stranger's face for a moment, and the amnesiac couldn't help but feel guilty.

"I told you-" _He's already forgotten the beginning of this conversation. You're losing him, Stanford. You're losing him._ He sighed, finding it more and more difficult to maintain his composure. "We're in the East China Sea."

"Oh! Yeah. Yeah, the East China Sea. You already said that. Sorry."

 _Oh, t_ _hank Moses._ Ford heaved a sigh of relief."That's okay. It's a lot to take in."

"You're really my brother?"

"Yeah. Always have been," Stanford promised. "Always will be."

The amnesiac knew that deciding to trust this guy was gonna end with his head at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean and his body sinking in the Atlantic, but he just couldn't bring himself to call the man a liar. There was sadness in the stranger's eyes, and guilt. A desperate mist coated his tired brown irises, reaching out to the lost man like a lighthouse reaching out through a hopelessly deep fog, a beam of light begging for his memories to come home.

He had to believe him.

Emotions started bubbling up within the amnesiac like dead fish rising to the surface. He was suddenly plagued with an immense headache as if someone had set fire to his mind. He shut his eyes, doubling over as he suffered through the cyan flames.

 _Guess I was good for something after all._

Then, a shockingly numb sensation, followed shortly by pain pain _pain_ spreading through his jaw as if someone had thrown a right hook in his face.

 _This was an insanely risky move: restarting the portal! Didn't you read my warnings?!_

Then, a searing burn in his right shoulder, a biting sting of singed flesh and red-hot metal as if he had been branded.

 _Stanley! Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry! Are you alright?_

Then, a dull ache spreading through his back as if he had been shoved violently against the wall.

 _You ignoramus! Your brother was gonna be our ticket out of this dump!_

 _Stanford, tell him he's being crazy._

"Stanford?"

Ford's grip tightened on his brother. He was afraid to hope, but... he could've sworn he just saw a light switch on behind Stan's eyes. "Stanley? It's me, Stanley, I'm here."

Stan groaned, pressing a palm to his forehead. "What the hell're ya doin' here, Sixer? You're supposed to be on navigation tonight." He wiped sweat from his brow. "If you're gonna get in bed with me, at least buy me a drink first."

Stan was exhausted. He looked up at his brother. Why was he so exhausted? And why did Ford look like he just saw a ghost? Before too long, Stan was hit with the slow realization of why he woke up, why he was so sweaty, why his heart was beating so fast. He started remembered their situation, and he blushed deeply, frightened and ashamed.

He wanted to get up and avoid his brother, but as exhaustion took over all he could do was lean against Ford for support. "Oh, shit, Sixer, I'm so-"

Before he could apologize, Ford was desperately wrapping him in a tight and protective embrace, overwhelmed with relief and solace and fear and paranoia and anxiety and paranoia and fear and _relief_ and-

"Woah, hey, cool it, Poindexter, I can't breathe."

Ford released him abruptly. "Fuck. Sorry."

"No, it's fine... I just-"

"I thought I lost you."

Stan widened his eyes for a moment, surprised at the interruption and at just how desperate his twin looked. But then he looked away, guilt consuming the shock and making him ashamed to make eye contact. Why did his brain have to crap out like this? Why _now?_ "I thought I lost me too."

Ford scrambled internally for some sort of levity, of release. "Well, uh... Thank you. For not shooting me."

"Ah, like I'd shoot some helpless nerd." The conman playfully punched his twin in the shoulder, laughing softly. The laugh filled the room with a deep sadness, a heavy failure to lighten the mood. It was a dull blue light intended to conceal the melancholy tribulation but instead only highlighted it.

Ford knew he had to say something. Or, at least, one of them did. But after something like that, what the hell could be said?

Instead of acknowledging what happened, Ford opted to say, "You should go back to sleep."

 _"No."_ Stan's protest was too fast and too loud. It showed how afraid he was. He shuddered to hear his own anxiety and buried his face in his hands.

"Stanley, you need to-"

"What if I forget again?"

Ford swallowed thickly. He had no answer.

Silence. Stan counted the seconds.

 _One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven-_

"At least lie down. I'll go back to the helm and find the closest land. We'll drop anchor as soon as possible and just... recoup."

Stan nodded, resigning to the compromise. He looked at his bed and cringed when he saw how torn the sheets were, how drenched in sweat it was, how horribly uncomfortable it looked. "Can I, uh..."

"My bed is all yours."

"Thanks, Stanford."

——

"I got you a cup of coffee." Ford's voice gently the dead air. Stan felt a shift in the mattress when his brother sat down beside him, where he was curled up with closed eyes, trying to go back and make the events of a few hours earlier un-happen.

"Don't want coffee," he grumbled, considering how his brother must feel, for once at loss for words, looking at Stan and seeing some sort of pathetic broken mess.

He clenched his fists. His brother had to know something. He was so quick to ramble on hypotheses about why Stan's memories could have returned. He got so manic when he talked about it, thoughts rushing together as he spewed theories left and right about the hippocampus and neuroplasticity and dendrites and telomeres and all these other words that would've made Stan feel dumb if he wasn't too busy being thrilled to see his brother happy for the first time in forty years.

Ford sighed and placed the mug on the bedside table. "Listen, Stan, I-"

"Stanford, I'm gonna ask you somethin'." A sort of determination crept into his voice, a confidence that wasn't there before. It colored his honey-pink voice a deep orange-maroon.

Ford looked up, surprised. "Of course, Stanley."

"You're the genius, right? So, what the hell was that? Why didn't it ever happen before? Why's it happenin' now? Is it gonna happen again? You've gotta know somethin' that you're not tellin' me. You've gotta know _somethin'._ I can't fuckin' live with myself, Stanford, if I start to... to forget. I can't do it."

Ford sighed, wishing he had an answer. He looked out the dusty window of their quarters and onto the city where they were docked. Soft golden light from the skyscrapers reached out and flirted with the surface of the black sea, painting a shimmering, mirage-like reflection of the night sky above them. It took him a long time to formulate an answer, but he mused aloud as the wheels of his brain turned in the background. "In Chinese mythology, there is a lady called Mèng Pó. Her job is to brew a special tea of forgetfullness that she gives to dead souls before they are reincarnated into their next life... The elixer causes them to forget everything, so that they have no memories of their previous lives or of their time in hell.

"The myth can be used to explain why some children report having memories of who they used to be... the system is imperfect, and Mèng Pó does not give elixer to every single soul, nor does every brew work properly."

"What's your point, Poindexter?"

Ford sighed, looking down at his hands. "Fiddleford's memory gun was flawed. He eventually remembered everything, and so did you. But just because your memories came back doesn't mean you were never shot. Maybe this was just... a side effect. Maybe it will happen again."

Stan laughed dryly. "So, in other words, ya don't have any idea what's goin' on?"

Ford shrugged, looking back at his brother and taking his hand reassuringly. "I do know one thing."

Stan weaved his five fingers between Ford's six and held on tight. He needed the security. "What's that?"

"If your memory ever does run out on you, I _will_ find a way to get it back."

"Promise?"

"Of course. Damn it all to hell if I ever let you walk out on me again."

꙳

 _Of course everyone goes crazy over such and such and such. We made ourselves a pillar and we used it as a crutch. We were certainly uncertain; at least, I'm pretty sure I am. Well, we didn't need the water. We just built that good God dam._

 _Oh, I know this of myself; I assume as much for other people. And I know this of myself: we've listened more to life's end gong than the sound of life's sweet bells._

꙳

 _Lyrics (c) Modest Mouse._

 _I do not own Gravity Falls._


End file.
